Visitors to the 2008 Indiana State Fair had the opportunity to step right up, explore and learn how diet and exercise keep bones healthy. The Foods and Nutrition Department in partnership with the Purdue Agriculture Exhibit Design Center provided the main attraction in the Pioneer Our Land Pavilion, an exhibit called

“The Bone ZoneCarnival of Healthy Choices.” The Bone Zone featured nine informative, interactive displays that engaged children and adults, to help them develop lifelong, healthy habits. The exhibit featured interactive games, hands-on activities, entertaining videos, and important details about bone health, diet, and exercise.

Research based information from the department’s signature area of calcium and bone health was presented with humor and pizzazz with activities including the incredible bone crusher, the amazing bone builder, a funhouse mirror, and a fortune teller. All of the interactive displays focused on choosing calcium rich foods, building strong bones with weight bearing exercise, and making lifelong healthy habits. Though the Bone Zone debuted at the state fair,it is available to travel to other venues and museums. The exhibit was made possible through the generous support of the Dairy & Nutrition Council of Indiana.

It is hard to believe that the forerunner to the present dietetics programs at Purdue started 85 years ago in 1923. Since that time, many capable faculty members have continued to strengthen Purdue’s programs in dietetics. In keeping with an important “tradition”, the two dietetic programs at Purdue were once again given the green light to continue another 10 years. In the spring of this year, the Coordinated Program in Dietetics (CPD) and the Didactic Program in Dietetics (DPD) hosted site visitors representing the Commission on Accreditation for Dietetics Education (CADE). Prior to arriving, the four site visitors read the site visit reports from each of the dietetic programs. This was no small task as each report was 400 pages! The site visit included meetings with all the faculty, preceptors, students, administrators, and of course, examining documentation records. In the end, the site visitors were impressed with the “great communication and coordination with other programs in the department”, the “enthusiastic and scholarly faculty”, and the “high quality preceptors”. The site visit report formed the basis for the CADE board to grant continued accreditation to the CPD and initial accreditation to the DPD at their summer board meeting. The CPD was granted accreditation to increase enrollment to 20 students annually, an Engagement Concentration, and international supervised practice experiences at the baccalaureate level. Maggie Dziadon became the first Purdue student to complete part of her accredited supervised practice in Ireland with the Community Nutrition & Dietetic Service Department in Mullingar, Ireland. This fall semester, four students are completing courses toward their DPD at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Ireland. The new accreditation plans highlight the globalization of society through the implementation of opportunities for dietetic students to learn and interact with communities and professionals beyond the United States. The professors of 85 years ago would not have imagined or even encouraged students to complete part of their Purdue dietetic training in Europe considering that the first transatlantic flight had not occurred (Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in 1927). In keeping with the Purdue tradition of being a player in shaping the future, the next 85 years promises changes just as unimaginable.

At first glance, the mass exodus of students from the Purdue campus might lead one to believe that the campus is more relaxed during the summer. However, the student exit coincides with a ramp-up of research activities. Several Foods and Nutrition faculty quickly laugh at any reference to the lazy days of summer. Dr. Carol Boushey and collaborators from Electrical and Computer Engineering set out to develop and test mobile phone technology as a modern field method for collecting diet information from adolescents. Working with various summer camps on campus, 65 campers between 11 and 18 years old consumed precisely weighed lunch and breakfast meals and tested the mobile phone food record under controlled conditions. An additional 15 adolescents were willing to be closely monitored for 24 hours while using the mobile phone food record for all meals and snacks. Thankfully, the reduced class schedule for Purdue students over the summer allowed over 20 undergraduate students and graduate students to actively help and learn the realities of research.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Stone Hall, Dr. Elsa Janle and her lab spent the summer investigating the potential of the combination of green tea and vitamin C to improve glucose tolerance in type 2 diabetes. These studies were conducted in Zucker Diabetic rats, a strain of rats which becomes obese and then develops diabetes. Changes in oxidized blood proteins which might give early warnings of the long term complications of diabetes were also investigated.